


mischkaffee, or why it's sometimes better not to talk about it

by mariie



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Break Up, Coffee, F/M, Friendship, Historical Inaccuracy, M/M, Multi, Original Character Death(s), Talking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-17
Updated: 2012-08-17
Packaged: 2017-11-12 08:33:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/488842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mariie/pseuds/mariie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>gilbert still remembers everything. austria does too, he just wishes he didn't. oneshot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	mischkaffee, or why it's sometimes better not to talk about it

“It’s not your fault,” Hungary says, “We’re just different people. We care about such different things.”  
Austria’s heart snaps in two, then. “What different things? What do I care about that you don’t?”  
Her face hardens. “Well,” she says, “you care about starting wars for me to fight for you. I care about keeping our people from starving.” The second half of her sentence is punctuated by pokes of her sharp nail into his chest. “It’s not going to work. You know it. And empires always fall in the end.”  
“But,” he says, pausing, because Austria is all about logic and reasons for things happening, but he honestly can’t think of one for this. “The war,” he says, “And.”  
“And?” she prompts.  
“And,” he says, “I love you.”  
She looks deeply, legitimately confused. “No you don’t,” she says.  
“Yes, I do!” He surprises himself with the vehemence behind his words.   
“No,” she says, sadly, smiling at him and shaking her head, “No, you don’t. I don’t even think you can love anyone, anymore.”  
“We’re married!”  
“You married Spain, and you two barely even saw each other. You’ve been married to half the continent. I think we need to stop kidding ourselves. Both of us. All this has ever been is a political marriage, and, politically, it’s not working anymore.”  
“It can still work,” he says, desperately, weakly, pulling at threads.  
“I used to love you,” she says, “Did you know that? A long time ago. But not anymore.”  
“We can make it work,” he says, again, “The war, we can keep—“  
At this she shakes her head, and throws her hands in the air. “I,” she said, “Am so sick of you stupid boys and your wars! It’s all you ever want to do! I got that out of my system years ago.”  
He doesn’t point out that she may be wrong about the “years ago” part.   
She continues in a low, tired voice, looking out at the rain. “You’ve never loved anyone you were married to. I think that’s the problem. And somewhere along the line, you got love and marriage all confused, so you keep trying to have both at once, but you’re too sick in the head nowadays to even come close.” She takes a deep breath. “So I’m going home.”  
His voice is breathless and scratchy when he finally finds words. “But this is your home,” he says.  
She looks like she’s going to cry. Or laugh. Or both. “No,” she says, looking out at rainy Vienna in the green wind, “It’s not.”

 

“That’s what happened? Really?” Gilbert chewed on a spicy lemon flavored cough drop, clicking the infernal thing against his teeth. “That’s depressing as fuck!”  
Austria looked deeply disgusted with the cup of coffee in front of him on the table. “You’ve been married, too. It’s always depressing. Do you have any sugar?”  
Gilbert stood up and grabbed the sugar bowl off of the counter, along with a spoon. “Go crazy, Österriech. Yeah, but only once. I’m not a whore like you.” He grinned like it was funny.  
“I merely, in my younger days, had trouble settling down. The Holy Roman Empire was difficult.” Austria turned up his nose; looking every inch the snobbish teenager he had been at his first marriage. He piled sugar into his coffee.   
“Yeah,” said Gilbert pointedly, “It was.”  
Austria looked blankly at him, shocked. “You don’t really blame me for the Brandenburg thing, do you? I would never do that to you.”  
“Um, yes, actually, you would. We hated each other back then, dude.”  
“No,” he said, “I would never do that to someone on purpose. Kill a nation, for real.”  
“You did, though, so it doesn’t matter anymore.”  
“You can’t be serious.”  
“No, ok, I totally am. Do you even remember what happened?”  
Austria frowned. “No,” he said.  
“He walked away, and he just… kind of dissolved. That’s it. It was fucking stupid.” He blinked a lot while he said this, and eventually turned to look at something incredibly interesting outside the window.  
Austria waited a moment, and when he spoke it was while looking down at his coffee cup. “I’m sorry,” he said. But he remembered Brandenburg. Quite sharply. Almost painfully sharply, in fact. Brandenburg had been tall and stick thin, with ruddy blond hair like gold. He had worn an earring, a little copper hoop. He had laughed at crude jokes and told amazing stories, without Gilbert’s tendency to get off track on pointless tangents. He was, more than any nation Austria had ever met before or since, really, truly alive. He had liked children. He had liked beer. He had liked fighting. He had liked love stories. He had liked music. More than anything, though, he had liked Gilbert. And Austria remembered this and Austria wanted to vomit because their union had never gone bad, and every single one of his own had, and all of his former spouses were still alive and breathing, and Brandenburg was dead.  
Gilbert shrugged, as if he hadn’t noticed Austria’s obvious pity. “It made me realize that there’s a reason these are all political marriages, you know? It’s no good to let things progress beyond that.”  
“That’s terrible. That’s the saddest philosophy I’ve ever heard.”  
“It’s not that sad, ok? It’s just from experience. You shouldn’t waste your time falling in love, because everyone just leaves you in the end. It’s just true.”  
Austria hesitated. He didn’t know what to say. Except: “Hungary and I had a ceremony, you know.”  
Gilbert knitted his brows together. “I didn’t know that. Weird. I didn’t.”  
“That’s because you were both male,” Austria added snottily with his eyebrow raised, his mouth quirked into a half smile. “It was small,” he continued. “It’s not done for nations to have ceremonies, you know. It implies that there’s more to it than politics.  
“Was there?” Gilbert interrupted, bluntly.   
Austria didn’t say anything.   
“Oh, shit,” he said. “For real? I didn’t know you had it in you! You do have a heart, after all.”  
“I’m not saying anything,” he said, “But it’s not a waste. It’s never a waste. To have people you care for. Brandenburg—“  
Gilbert cut him off. “I get it. I know. But you need to stop acting like you understand anything, because you may be kind of fucked as far as politics and marriage go, but you don’t even rate compared to all the shit I have to deal with now. Why do you think I only got married once, Österreich?”  
And Austria had, like, ten really clever responses to that, but he couldn’t bring himself to spit any of them out. “You never cared, after that.”  
“Oh, well excuse me for not marrying Hungary and using her to fight my battles for me.” Gilbert took a long gulp of his coffee.   
“She was a very good wife. You missed out, then.” Austria said, trying to be polite, serious, and diplomatic.  
“Ha! That’s disgusting, dude!” Gilbert laughed, “You’re sick! Oh, you know what I just read in this old book? At one point, Fritz was supposed to marry Maria Theresa. Isn’t that the funniest shit ever?”  
Austria looked horrified. “No,” he said, “That’s terrifying. Can you imagine? We would have been…” he trailed off.   
At that moment both of them sat still, with frozen looks of terror on their faces.   
“I mean, though,” said Gilbert, “It wouldn’t have been that bad. Just a political marriage. And, like, we’ve lived together before. With West.”  
“It’s true,” agreed Austria. “Just a political marriage. Like Spain and I.” He doesn’t address the time they spent living with Germany. They, as a rule, didn’t talk about it. Ever. Even if Gilbert feels comfortable bringing it up now, Austria still doesn’t.  
Gilbert snorted. “But can you imagine? Like, if that had happened.”  
Austria didn’t say what he was thinking. Usually, he does, with Gilbert. He’s not the sensitive type, and he can usually handle whatever rude point Austria’s about to make. But all he was thinking, then, is that Gilbert might still have been a nation, if that horrendous marriage had gone ahead. So he didn’t say it. “We would have ruled Europe, though,” he said, “For a long, long time.”  
Gilbert looked to his right, out the window at the bustle of Berlin. “Österreich,” he said, chuckling, “We already did.”

**Author's Note:**

> mischkaffee was shitty east german coffee mixed with like chicory and shit it was nasty and caused a national crisis! headcanon says gilbo still drinks it just because ostalgie :')  
> national stereotypes say austrians drink fucking sweet coffee (it could just be french though jnsp?)  
> this is bad but not as bad as it looks i promise! i just like white people and talking and coffee a whole heck of a lot  
> also history and bad break ups  
> ok enjoy! xo


End file.
